Where Saints and Angels Walk the Line
by Bondigargoyle
Summary: As the chasm between Callie and Arizona stretches ever wider, Karev tries to bring Arizona back from the brink. I don't usually try to write to beat an episodic deadline (ie writing while a series is in progress) as opposed to filling a gap in hiatus, so this a bit of new experience. Hopefully it kind of works.


Arizona looked up at the knock on the bedroom door, expecting Callie. Alex Karev stood framed in the doorway.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She demanded, turning her back to him. "And how did you get in, anyways?"

"Callie lent me her keys."

"Yeah that's going on the list."

"I need to talk to you."

She didn't answer but since she hadn't yet thrown anything at his head, Callie's predicted response, he took that as a signal to press on.

"You did…you did make me into a better person. No-one else would have looked at me and said 'Paeds' but you did, you saw something."

"I have been known to be wrong."

"Yeah well, you stuck around for a heck of a long time if you'd changed your mind. Longer than anyone else ever has. Longer than my wife did. Dr Robbins, you turned me into a doctor. If Hopkins wanted me, it's because of what you brought out in me." She didn't answer but Alex stumbled along, suspecting this was his last chance. "Meredith has this thing about finding your person. And I know you're Torres' person but I always kind of thought of you as mine as well. When I said yes to Hopkins, I wasn't trying to betray you, I was trying to make you…I wanted to…I hoped you would be proud of me." This last statement was no more than a mumble.

His former mentor remained silent.

"Yeah, okay well, so that wasn't–"

"So why aren't you in Maryland eating crabcakes and cheering for the Orioles?" She cut him off.

"I'm not going to Baltimore."

"Yeah? You couldn't decide that before the plane crash that cost me my leg?"

"And for the record, I'm not staying because of what happened to you. I feel awful about it; I probably will feel awful for the rest of my life. But that's not why I'm still here."

Finally Arizona rolled over and looked at him.

"Why are you still here?"

"Because the guy they've replaced you with is an ass."

"Pot. Kettle."

"No, I'm a jerk, I'll admit that, but this guy, this guy is something else."

"Meaning what?"

"He's destroying the unit. Everything you built, everything you taught us to value is out the window. Starting with the orphans program."

"He scrapped the orphans program?" In spite of her intention to ignore him, she was being drawn in.

"He sent it to UCLA. His whole focus is innovative, ground-breaking surgery."

"Why is that a problem? The innovative stuff gets us the grants and the prizes. More money equals more children being helped."

"Not if everything that isn't a future keynote speech before the AMA is tossed out the door. We're sending a hell of a lot of cases, all run-of-the-mill, to Seattle Presbyterian. I mean yeah we all like the challenging stuff but we used to be a hospital not a testing ground. Also you told me the mark of a good surgeon, particularly a good Paeds surgeon is knowing when not to cut."

"I did."

"Yeah well Barnett could stand to be reminded. But I can't fight him on my own. I need your help."

"Oh my good lord." Bailey nudged Meredith and they both looked up to see Alex Karev holding the door open for Arizona Robbins. "Now there is a sight for sore eyes.

Bailey hugged her friend and colleague. "Are you here to see Sofia? Or…?" She let the question hang unspoken but hopeful.

"I'm here to see for myself what this Barnett character is doing to my tiny humans."

"What happened to your eye?" Meredith asked, after they too had hugged.

Arizona touched the growing bruise around her left eye.

"I fell over in the shower. It was that or have Karev help me–"

"Don't even joke about that," Alex protested. "Your wife would kill me."

At the mention of Callie, Arizona's jaw tightened noticeably. .

"Well," Bailey jumped in, rescuing the moment as always. "_Doctor_ Robbins, let's get you a lab coat and some scrubs."

"All right, what the hell have you people been doing to my unit?" Arizona demanded as she swung onto the Pæds ward, Alex trailing happily in her wake.

"Dr Robbins, nice to see you up and about. I'm Mel Barnett." The new attending came up behind her.

Arizona spun, lost her balance and almost fell, but managed to catch and steady herself against the desk.

"You're the one who's been eviscerating my unit. 35 per cent of our cases being referred elsewhere?"

"Well we've been shorthanded."

"Really? Given this unit has both an attending and a Paeds fellow, it sounds pretty well-staffed to me. And if you are short-handed, the logic would be to keep the straightforward cases and refer the complicated ones. But word is you don't do surgery unless the _New England Journal of Medicine_ is taking notes."

"You're entitled to your opinion, Dr Robbins." Barnett replied coolly, his eyes shooting daggers at Karev. "But you are no longer the Chief of Paediatrics. And it seems to me that you allowed a sense of complacency to set in around here. So I am enacting an organized plan to take this unit to the next level."

"Fantastic!" Arizona declared, with a bright yet deadly smile. "Except that's not going to happen."

"Dr Robbins–"

"Dr Barnett, they're children. They're not lab rats, they're not your next journal article or conference paper and they're not stepping stones to the Harper Avery. They are tiny people and they are sick and they are hurt and they are scared. They come to us to stop feeling sick and hurt and scared. Another time, another place, I would see it as a challenge to turn you into the kind of doctor that could understand that. But I've just spent two years turning him into a doctor that could understand that," she pointed at Karev. "So I don't really give a flying you- know-what about your organized plan, this is not how MY unit is run."

"Hey I just saw Arizona up on the Paeds ward." Avery said to Callie. "That's great!"

"Arizona? My Arizona?"

"I didn't mean the state."

"Yeah she's named after the battleship not the state."

"Well, I certainly did not mean the USS Arizona is up on the Paeds ward. Though Robbins did look like she was going to war with Mel Barnett."

"He can take a number." Callie replied.

"Is that how she got that shiner?"

"What?"

"She's got a black eye. You didn't…"

"Are you asking me if I hit my wife?" Callie roared at him.

"No! No, nothing like that. But I got a black eye once banging into my girlfriend's elbow. You know in the middle of–"

"Go away, Avery."

"It happens. Things get enthusiastic."

"Go!"

But once he was gone, Callie paused and considered this news.

"Don't know what you did, Karev," she said aloud, "But whatever it was, keep it up."

Up in Owen's office, Alex was feeling just a tad self-congratulatory as he stood watching the Chief of Surgery try and referee between Barnett and Robbins.

"Does she even still have privileges?" Barnett demanded.

Arizona looked expectantly at Hunt.

"She was on sick leave, she hasn't been suspended, yes, she has privileges. Though, you're not cleared for surgery," he added to Arizona.

"Do you see a scalpel in my hand? I'm not the one slashing the Paeds unit to shreds."

"I was told, I would be the Chief of Paediatric Surgery." Barnett protested. "As Chief–"

"Acting Chief, nothing is carved in stone." Owen corrected, suddenly wishing that he'd tried harder to hold on to Stark. "You're welcome to apply for the permanent position. Robbins, I presume that you'll be applying as well?"

"Of course she is," Karev answered for her. "Aren't you?"

Arizona looked at him, her resolve wavering.

"Robbins!" Alex said pointedly, holding his mentor's gaze.

"Arizona?" Hunt's tone was more gentle, but there was something similarly beseeching in it.

"If she doesn't want it…" Barnett shrugged.

"You're one of those guys who really just doesn't know when to stop talking, aren't you?" Arizona observed. She turned to Hunt. "I'm applying."

"All right, for the time being you'll all have to try and get along," Owen continued. "Having all three of you, even if Arizona isn't cleared for surgery is a good thing. It means we can stop sending so many cases out the door."

"Keeping more cases in the hospital? Well that can only be a good thing, right, Dr Barnett?" said Arizona smugly.

Barnett began to protest but Hunt held up a hand

"End of discussion."

"Or if you don't like it, I hear there's an opening at Hopkins." Karev offered.

Barnett seethed in his chair

"Good," Hunt continued cautiously. "Then Barnett and Karev you will take lead on surgeries. Dr Robbins will be teaching and consulting rather than cutting while she finishes her physiotherapy."

"Finishes?" Alex muttered. Arizona hit him with her crutch.

Hunt shot them a warning look.

"Can I have my orphans program back?" Alex asked

"Yes." Arizona replied.

"This is what I'm talking about," Barnett growled.

"I only agreed to sending it to UCLA because you made a case about staffing." Hunt replied. "With Robbins back, I think we can handle it."

"Tell me something, Chief, at some point are you going to start running this place again?" Barnett inquired

"Excuse me?"

"You're so damn guilty about what happened to them, they walk all over you. All of them, even the ones who didn't crash into a mountain." With that Barnett stormed out of the office.

Alex and Arizona exchanged a glance

"Owen…" Arizona began.

"I've made a lot of bad decisions in the last year. Bringing you back on board is not one of them. Get out of my office and go to physio so we can get you back on full rotation. I want my surgeons back."

"That went better than I expected." Arizona told Alex as he walked her home.

"What did you expect?"

"Owen reminding me that this is the second time the hospital's had to replace me and telling me that since I can't stand in front of an operating table, calling myself an attending surgeon is a bit of a stretch."

Alex remained silent.

"On the other hand, maybe being a cripple works for me."

He whipped around to face her.

She shrugged. "I'm trying the black humor approach."

"How's that working for you?"

"Not sure. I might be too blond to pull it off."

"We can dye your hair black, get you some piercings."

"Oh I'm already going to be setting off metal detectors for the rest of my life, not sure I need to add piercings."

"That one worked better."

"Yeah? Maybe I'm warming up."

Alex took a deep breath. "I know…" he started and then stopped, then started again. "I know this doesn't change what happened. And I know it doesn't mean you forgive me. So I'm not… But I'm glad you're back. Even if you can't stand my guts, I'd rather work for you then that ass."

Arizona regarded him for a moment before she spoke.

"I understand why you wanted to go to Hopkins and if I hadn't been so pissed off that I was losing a fantastic Paeds surgeon, I would have been very proud of you. And for the record, I'm proud of you now, for sticking around in Seattle because it was the best thing for your patients.

He ducked his head and blushed.

"The first time you tried to apologize and I said it should have been you not me because I had a wife and a baby and you had no-one." she continued.

"Yeah."

"Callie and Sofia, that's what got me off that mountain. When the pain and the fear and the cold was all too much and I just wanted to slip into the darkness and be done with it, I thought about my wife and my baby and about getting home to them."

Alex nodded.

"I really want there to be a higher explanation for the crash, some greater meaning. But there isn't one. It wasn't some kind of judgment about who among us was good or bad or better. Because if it was, gawd knows, Lexie Grey would not have been the first one to die. It was an accident. It was a random convergence of bad things happening and Mark and Lexie and I just happened to be in the line of fire."

"Arizona…"

"If I hadn't taken your spot, if you had been sitting in my seat on that plane, if it had been your leg, who would you have been thinking about, when it got cold and dark and your leg felt like it was burning up? Who would have gotten you home, Alex?"

"I…" He shrugged.

"I told you I'd take you up on trading places. But now I'm just not so sure. I'd hate to think of you sitting there, in pain, feeling like you were all alone in this world."

Alex thought he might cry as Arizona pulled him down and kissed his cheek.

"If you ever find yourself in that situation, you just remember, Alex Karev, I am your person and I want you to come home."

With that she turned and went inside.

Callie was sitting at the table feeding Sofia.

"Hey, I hear you went toe-to…I hear you took on Mel Barnett and won."

"Yep." Arizona didn't look at her wife.

"What happened to your eye?"

"I fell in the shower."

"There's a chair in there for a reason."

"Yeah, thanks for that; love feeling like I'm an 80 year-old invalid."

She bent and kissed her daughter's head.

"How was your day, Beautiful?" She asked the child, her tone lightening significantly. "Mama took back her Paeds unit today, yes she did. Well mostly."

Then without another word or glance, she swung herself into the bedroom and shut the door.

Callie sighed and looked at Sofia.

"I know it doesn't seem like much, Kid, but trust me it's a start."

Over the next month, a new pattern emerged. On the bright side, Callie reflected, Arizona got up every morning and went to work. And every morning, Karev met her at the front door of the apartment building and would walk with her to her pre-rounds physio session.

Though Barnett continued his attempts to implement his new Paeds plan, he was beginning to realize he was outgunned. Arizona not only had the Karev and Hunt, she had the nurses and since she had started teaching, the medical students. His only advantage was that she still couldn't perform surgery but Karev delighted in informing him that a prosthetic would eventually solve that problem. Though he gave no outward signs of surrender, but Barnett began to quietly look for another position.

At home, though Arizona was warm and loving to Sofia, Callie experienced no similar thaw. All conversation from her wife was perfunctory and rarely extended beyond the bare necessities of inhabiting the same apartment and caring for their daughter.

Arizona ate all of her meals at the hospital usually accompanied by Karev, Bailey or occasionally Meredith, to whom she had become closer since the crash. Callie ate with Shepherd or Hunt. She had made a few attempts to pump Karev for information, which he resisted, finally shutting her down entirely:

"Torres I get it, I get it and it sucks. But if she thinks I'm running to you behind her back, she's going to freeze me out as well. I'm not saying she's right, but it's what will happen. So isn't it better that she has one of us with her, even if you'd rather it was you than me?"

It had physically hurt to say yes, but Callie had to allow that he was right.

Karev wasn't exactly happy with the arrangement either, though.

"You should talk to your wife," he finally told Arizona as they had lunch one Friday afternoon.

"Out of bounds, Karev."

"No, not this time. This you need to hear and no-one else is going to tell you. It's killing her."

"Maybe she should have thought about that before letting them cut off my leg."

"I cut off your leg," he reminded her, bracing slightly for her reaction. To his surprise she didn't lash out at him, though neither did she concede much ground.

"Who held the blade isn't important. If you'd refused, someone else would have done it. But no-one could have done it if my wife hadn't her given consent."

"You can forgive me, ME, but not Callie?"

"Strange but true." Arizona nodded, taking another bite.

"Come with me." Alex instructed, standing up.

"Sit down and eat."

"No. Come with me."

"Alex."

"If you're my person, then on some level, I'm yours, and I am not going to let you destroy the best thing that's ever happened to you."

"Where do you get off–"

"You kicked me off your service once for two weeks, two whole weeks, because I'd slept with her before she'd even met you. I know what you two mean to each other, even if you're being like this. Come with me."

"Fine, if it shuts you up."

He led her up to one of the supply closets on the general surgery ward. Pressing his ear to the door, he confirmed what he already suspected. Very quietly, he opened it enough for Arizona to see inside.

Callie was sitting on an up-turned crate, her back to them, sobbing. Alex let Arizona watch for a good minute before he shut the door.

"She's like clockwork, she lets herself cry for fifteen minutes every day, then she shuts it all back down. I was married once too, remember, and I didn't fix things when I should have. Do you see a ring on my finger?"

Arizona glared at him but she shook her head.

"There was a moment where we could have saved it, where Izzy could have reached out or I could have reached out. But we didn't, we kept to our corners and our marriage died. Your wife is stronger than mine was. She's more patient. But even she is going to hit her limit. Don't wait around for that to happen. Besides there are better things that I could be doing with the supply closets."

"You went to Karev?" Arizona demanded walking in the door.

"Where have you been?" Callie asked without thinking. "It's nearly 8 o'clock, I was getting worried."

"Worried about what? That I might be in an accident?"

"Fine, forget it."

"You went to Karev?" Arizona repeated

"I went to him with what?"

"With our relationship problems."

"I didn't talk to Alex about that."

"So how come I'm getting lectured about our marriage by Alex Karev."

"Our marriage? We don't currently have a marriage," Callie countered. "I don't have a wife, I have a room-mate. And if Karev figured that out, that puts him in a clear majority with just about everyone else who has encountered us in the last two months. If he decided to interfere, that's on him. But hell remind me to buy him a beer, because this is the first time you've started a conversation with me in at least six weeks."

"Clear majority, huh? How many people know you've been crying in the supply closet every day?"

Callie blushed. "Alex knows…? I don't know how he found out about that. I can promise you I didn't tell him."

She regretted the words as soon as she said them but it was too late.

"Yeah and what's your promise worth?"

"I can't keep doing this, Arizona…I can't keep doing this with you hating me." Callie forced the words out against the emotion closing up her throat. "I have tried…I…"

"You promised me!" Arizona shouted, "You promised me that you wouldn't give up on me. You promised not to let them take off my leg."

"I didn't promise to let you die." Callie replied softly, though an undercurrent of anger was rising in her voice.

Arizona stared at her.

"Is that what you're saying I should have done? Put you in a box in the ground, just so I could say I didn't break a promise. Because that's where we were headed. Your leg was dying and it was pulling you down with it. Nothing, short of cutting it off, was going to stop that. So that's what I did. I let them save your life."

Callie's voice continued to grow in volume and furor.

"So you tell me Arizona, would you rather be dead? Would you rather have both legs and a matching headstone? Cause if that's the case, I don't know who the hell you are, but could you go away and send my WIFE back, because I can't tell you how much I miss her!"

Arizona's answer, whatever it would have been was cut off by a wail from Sofia's crib.

"Your daughter's crying." Callie said coldly. "Even if you've given up being my wife, maybe you could try still being her mother."

Arizona glared at her for a moment, then turned and swung into the nursery.

She took a long breath, controlling herself before she leaned over and reached into the cot, her voice and expression now calm.

"Ssh, Sofia, sweetheart, it's okay." She caressed the child lovingly. "Actually it's not okay. You miss your father and your mothers are… it's not okay." Sofia continued to cry, lifting her arms for her mother to pick her up. The sight just about broke Arizona's heart.

"Callie?" she called out. "Callie could you come here? I need your…" She paused then forced out the last word through gritted teeth, "help."

Concern for their child was enough to force Callie to respond.

"Why? What's wrong?" She came into the room.

"I can't pick her up. I can't lift her from this angle." There were tears running down Arizona's face.

"Did you try?"

"And drop her if I fail? No, I didn't."

"Okay," Callie relented. She pointed to the rocking chair. "Sit."

Arizona lowered herself into it.

"Come here, Baby." Callie lifted up the little girl and kissed her, but then carried her to the chair and placed her in the other woman's lap. "You sit with your Mama for a bit."

Sofia nestled into the comfort of Arizona's embrace as her mother gently rocked them.

"It's not okay, is it?" Arizona continued to murmur to her daughter, her tone much gentler than her words. "That's what you're trying to tell us. That it's not okay."

Callie sank down on the single bed that sat along one wall. They'd put it there so that one of them could sleep in room if Sofia was sick, but Callie had been sleeping on it since Arizona's amputation. Even before her wife had returned from the hospital, she'd fled their bed and taken refuge in the nursery.

"You came home," she said finally.

Arizona looked at her questioningly.

"You said nothing's okay. But it would have been worse if you hadn't come home. Mark and Lexie died. You could have died, but you didn't, you came home. When she's old enough, Sofia's going to give thanks for that every day. I already do."

She got up and left the room.

Half an hour later Arizona came out quietly.

"She's asleep again. I put her on the bed."

"I'll go put her back in the crib."

"After you do that, I want to talk to you."

"Arizona…"

"Talk, not shout, just talk."

Callie attended to the baby, then returned to the living room, expecting to find Arizona sitting there. But the room was empty. She crossed to the bedroom.

"Arizona?" She called softly, tapping on the door.

"Come in."

Arizona was standing in front of the bed, resting on her crutches, completely naked.

Callie was pretty sure that her heart stopped beating for at least a second, maybe two. She had to force herself to move her eyes up from her wife's body to meet her face. She half expected to find Arizona looking at her with that knowing teasing smile. Instead what she encountered was a look of desperation.

"What do you see?" Arizona demanded.

"What?"

"What do you see? When you look at me, what do you see?"

Callie cast her eyes up and down then she began to understand.

"I see a stunningly beautiful woman. I see a brilliant doctor and a talented surgeon. I see one of the two people that I love most on this planet. I see my daughter's mother." She crossed to Arizona, drawing her hand down her wife's left side, grazing the side of her breast, following the valley of her waist and the swell of her hip. "I see the woman I want to grow old next to, the woman I am so in love with, the woman that gets me hot like no-one else I've ever met. And this," her hand came to rest on the scarred stump, " this changes none of that."

"I've been so scared…" Arizona struggled for the words. "We're all so conditioned to see the illness and injury not the person. I know it's how we cope, how we manage to make the cuts, to take the risks. But I've been so scared that all you would see is the scars, that you wouldn't see…" she couldn't finish the sentence.

"I see you." Callie assured her. "The crutches, the scars, yeah they're visible but each day they fade a little bit more into the background. Through it all, you are there, clear and in focus. I promise you I will never stop seeing you."

"I love you, Calliope, so much."

"Good. Because I love you and I can't keep living without you."

Arizona launched forward into her wife's arms, never doubting that she would be caught. For a moment they clung to each other, not a breath of space between them.

"Don't let go," Arizona begged. "Just don't let go."

"I will never let go. I promise you."

Arizona's answer, while muffled and choked with emotion, sounded like an angel's choir to Callie:

"I believe you."

Their first coupling was clumsy, not because of Arizona's injuries but simply because the desperation of reunion over-ruled any subtlety. The second was slower and more tender. By the third time, they were laughing.

"Does that count as 'make-up-sex'?" Arizona asked, as they lay together afterward, still touching and caressing one another.

"I think that counts as 'thank-God-you're-not-dead-sex," Callie replied, kissing her wife's fingers.

"Yeah, we have a bit too much of that."

"Hell yeah. Though on a scale of one to ten…" She grinned at Arizona.

"Eleven, definitely an eleven." Arizona laughed in response.

"I missed the sound of your laughter," Callie declared. "I missed you."

"I missed me too." Arizona admitted. "And I missed us."

"You didn't miss me?"

"I had you. You were on your own, I wasn't." She kissed Callie's cheek. "You never abandoned me. Just like you promised."

"I had this big night planned." Callie remembered.

"When?"

"The night of the…"

"Of the crash?"

"Yeah. You'd had such a rough time with Nick's surgery and Alex leaving, I thought you could use some cheering up. So I got myself all fancied up in my best lingerie and I stretched out on the bed to wait for you to come home."

Arizona didn't say anything. She just stroked familiar planes of Callie's face with the backs of her fingers.

"I got woken up at three a.m. by Hunt calling to tell me something was wrong, that your…that the plane…that Boisie had called and…"

She couldn't go on, as she fought back tears.

"Callie."

"What?"

"You can stop being strong now."

Callie looked into Arizona's eyes. "I can?"

"You've had months of having to be strong, for me, for Mark, for Sofia. It's okay to stop."

With those words from the woman she loved, her resilience collapsed and Callie gave in fully to the grief and the pain. She pressed her face into Arizona's neck and wept as her wife held her and stroking her gently. Arizona spoke quietly, her tone almost the same as the one she had used with Sofia earlier.

"I love you," she said simply, over and over.

At last, Callie's tears abated, she took a long, slightly ragged breath and lifted her head.

Arizona smiled at her, thumbing away the last tears.

"I love you." She said again, brushing Callie's lips with her own.

"I love you too."

"And I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Oh I don't know, two months of punishing you for a start. Not being there for you when Mark died for another. Want me to keep going?"

Callie shook her head. "Not really."

"Okay. I am sorry though. I wasn't angry with…I was but…all I had left was the anger. It was the last handhold I had and if I let go of that, I was gone. I wasn't angry at you, I was angry at everything and everyone. You just happened to be in the line of fire. A lot."

"Yeah."

"Yeah. Why did you put up with me? Why didn't you just walk away?"

"Because I love you and I knew that you were in there somewhere, under all the grief and anger and loss. Somewhere under all the emotional wreckage was the woman I married, and I wasn't walking away if there was any chance at all of seeing her again. Also I promised you after Nick, that I wouldn't leave. So I didn't."

"Thank you," Arizona whispered, kissing Callie tenderly, and then resting her head on her wife's shoulder.

"Arizona?" Callie asked quietly after a moment.

"Yes?"

"I need to know you forgive me."

"Callie, you haven't done anything to forgive."

"That's not the same thing."

There was truth in that, Arizona had to admit, so she thought long and hard before she answered. She made sure the next words came from deep within her heart. She framed Callie's face with her palms and said:

"I am grateful to have someone in my life that loves me so much that she is willing to risk everything, and I do mean everything, to protect me. You did the right thing in an awful situation and I will never again hold that decision against you. Okay?"

Callie nodded

"Okay."

Mornings were worst. In the fuzzy border between waking and sleeping, it all felt unreal, a bad nightmare that hadn't quite released its talons. But then she would make the simplest of motions, reaching to scratch her knee or rub one foot with the other and it all came into razor sharp focus. Instinctually, she would reach for Callie, and then she would remember that too. It was always enough to bring her to tears. Even now, now that she was going back to work, going to physio, reaching out to be the doctor she once was, even now dawn was too much for her. She allowed herself the brief indulgence of a minute to weep. To weep for her leg, but also for Mark and for Lexie and for the seemingly irreparable damage she was doing to her marriage.

This morning was the same as all the others. She reached out across the bed and found it empty, and her heart broke again. But then, almost immediately, arms came around her and held her close, warm lips brushed her forehead and her temple, and a rich voice comforted her in hushed tones.

"I thought you were gone. Or that I'd only dreamed that you were back," Arizona admitted as she took a deep breath and the tears faded.

"I'm sorry," Callie kissed her again, "I thought you were still asleep. I just went to check on the baby."

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine. How are you?"

Arizona took another deep breath and considered the question as Callie studied her.

"I think," Arizona began, reaching out to take Callie's hand, "I think I'm going to be okay."

The following Monday when Alex entered the cafeteria, he stopped dead.

"Karev!" Kepner protested, banging into his back. "What's the matter?"

He nodded across the room. Kepner followed his gaze. "Well that's a positive step isn't it?"

Callie and Arizona were sitting together. But Callie was picking at her fries, not eating them, and Arizona was frowning and staring at a spot on the table.

"It could be," Alex muttered. "Or they could be about to start World War III complete with an audience."

He skipped the line and crossed to them, trying to figure out his opening gambit. What he came up with was, "So?"

"Hey, Karev." Arizona looked up and smiled, then studied him quizzically "You're not eating?"

"Have my fries, I'm not hungry anyway." Callie shoved them away.

"Sit" Arizona kicked out a chair with her good leg. "We're just going over everything Callie's been doing for Derek's hand, trying to figure out if something got missed."

"That's what…that's what you're frowning about?"

"Was I frowning?" Arizona looked to Callie for confirmation.

"A little."

"You scared the hell out of me!" Alex protested in a hoarse whisper.

"What are you talking about?" Robbins stared at him confused.

"I thought…I…never mind. It's fine, forget it."

"You should eat. I think you're getting hypoglycemic and loopy."

Callie glanced at her watch. "I gotta go. I have a consult with your buddy Barnett. Frying pan, fire, yay." She stood up, then leaned over and kissed Arizona. "See ya later."

"Hang in there." Arizona squeezed her hand. "Remember I'm married to the best Ortho surgeon in the country."

"In that case, could you have her call me, cause I'm pretty much out of ideas," Callie quipped darkly. "Alex, eat the fries."

After she left, Alex turned to Arizona. "So you two are really ok?"

She nodded, then yawned. "Sorry, I didn't get much sleep this weekend."

"Don't share," he protested "I really don't want to know about that."

"Oh come on Karev, I thought girl-on-girl action was the number one porn draw-card?"

"And you're ruining it!"

Arizona laughed. "I wasn't actually planning on giving you details."

"Good."

He dug into Callie's fries, hungrily, then realized Arizona was watching him with bemused affection.

"What? You told me to eat."

"Nothing." But she continued to smile.

"Arizona, seriously, you're freaking me out."

"Next time I'm really pissed off at you, like really pissed off, remind me of today."

"Why? What's so special about today?"

"Nothing. Nothing special at all. I got up, I had breakfast with my wife and daughter, I came to work. Completely ordinary day. That's what I want you to remind." She got up. "Eat up, tiny humans are waiting to be rescued from Big Bad Barnett. We've got work to do."


End file.
